Rating: 
Summary: A must-read for the grammar snob
Review: Once you get past the author's "Britishness", this is an enjoyable read. I found myself laughing out loud and even had an occasional urge to shout, "Amen!"
Rating: 
Summary: save your money!!
Review: I do not understand how racist terms are funny--even if claims to be "witty" and written to illustrate incorrect grammar. Why hasn't anyone mentioned this? See Page 51-- "N-word's out..." The grammatical point is irrelevant. Racist language is far more offensive than comma misplacement!
Rating: 
Summary: WOW!
Review: Who could imagine someone would write a grammar book that I'd want to take with me into the bath? This is the book that should be used to teach English in schools! Has anyone read this book and not thought twice about adding that comma? An excellent, fun book.
Rating:
Summary: Ms. Truss's Losing Battles
Review: Lynne Truss writes a wickedly funny treatise on the death-- if we, the faithful who care about apostrophes, are not armed and ready to fight the barbarians-- of punctuation as we know it. Of course, her dilemma is that only people who care about correct punctuation are the ones who will read this fascinating book. Those who are most guilty will not or cannot read her. But for those of us who read this book there are wonderful tidbits. For example, Oliver Wendell Holmes said that We have to dismount from an idea and get back into the saddle again at every parenthesis while the writer Gertrude Stein found question marks the most uninteresting of all punctuation marks. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the exclamation point (as it is known in America) is "like laughing at your own jokes." My favorite image from the book is that of the semicolon that "quietly practises the piano with crossed hands." For those of us who care, Ms. Truss gives a good review of the rules of punctution. She discusses thoroughly the correct use of all forms of punctuation, from the apostrophe to the hyphen, and compares the differences between British and American usage. She also discusses the blight that e-mail messages have brought on us all. "I keep thinking that what we do now, with this medium of instant delivery, isn't writing, and doesn't even qualify as typing either: it's just sending. What did you do today? Sent a lot of stuff." I fear that punctuation problems are worse on this side of the pond than they are in England. I attended a black tie event recently for over 300 people in which words large enough to be read from the back of the dinning hall were projected on a huge screen behind the speaker. The apostrophe was used over and over to express the plural, rather than the possessive of words. I felt as obsolete as a rotary telephone.
Rating:
Summary: Fun for the select few
Review: This book is a hilarious, very British (i.e., very dry) diatribe on the poor use of grammar today. As the author explains, the book is for the select few: grammatical sticklers. And as the author hilariously points out, "Grammatical sticklers are the worst people for finding common cause because it is in their nature (obviously) to pick holes in everyone, even their best friend. Honestly, what an annoying bunch of people." Some of the reviewers on this site could be cited as case in point. So if you, like the author and me, are a grammatical stickler, someone who finds the grammatical mistakes of others amusing, you will enjoy this book. For example, I found it very amusing that one of the reviews of this book, a book about the use of punctuation, inappropriately puts the words "gift list" in quotations as if to say that it is merely a hypothetical gift list because he doesn't actually plan on giving any gifts. You will have the opportunity to learn punctuation, although the punctuation you learn will be British. And as the author points out British punctuation is slightly different than American punctuation. For example, on page xxiv of the Preface to the North American edition:
...
American usage interestingly places all terminal punctuation inside closing quotation marks, while British usage sometimes "picks and chooses". (Like that.)
...
Personally, I suspect some people may not actually read the book closely enough to learn these kinds of important grammatical distinctions. In summary, if you're a grammatical stickler who enjoys dry humor, you'll enjoy this book. But it's a select few.
Rating:
Summary: An absolute must-have for English lovers
Review: English is often called the window to the world. This book opens that window wider and forces the light in.
All the "punctuation manglers" I know ought to read it. I have started with myself, and will be sure to spread the word. This book is at the top of my "gift list" for this year.
Good job, Lynn. I hope the day never comes when Pandas eat, shoot & leave!
Rating: 
Summary: mellifluous, but vapid
Review: Miss Truss has a pleasant, entertaining writing style, but this book doesn't have much information on grammar. It only addresses a few grammatical subjects (e.g., apostrophes, commas, and semi-colons). The text is at times simply wrong and often, muddled. For example, in the book, periods are placed outside quotation marks; periods (and commmas) are ALWAYS placed inside quotation marks. Addtionally, her explanation of when to use a semi-colon is long winded and murky. (A clear and concise explanation is that a semi-colon is used between two related independent clauses.)
Rating:
Summary: The comedy of commas
Review: The best way to breeze into summer is to read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by the witty British author, Lynne Truss. The punctuation lessons that one loved to hate growing up have remarkably been given a fresh coat of paint here. Anyone who has ever seen a sign or read a phrase of bad punctuation that stiffens the back or turns the head will revel in the author's examples of misplaced commas, apostrophes, colons, and other marks of punctuation. (I prefer the Oxford comma; but then, again, I'm an American) The first half of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is full of terrific illustrations of how punctuation changes the meanings of sentences and phrases. One of my favorites is "no dogs please" and the page on which Ms. Truss describes the decimation of Roman soldiers and tells of a sign that reads "Illiterates' Entrance" made me laugh out loud; something I rarely do while reading. The more sober second half of the book is her effort to set down some guidelines for the use of various punctuation marks. The author is careful not to allow herself to be boxed in hard and fast by former usage. Like an up-to-date schoolmarm she is strict but kindly; one feels that a test for the reader might be unveiled at any moment. How one can write a book like this with such warmth while needling much of the way is a testament to Ms. Truss. I highly recommend "Eats, Shoots and Leaves".
Rating:
Summary: What's all the fuss?
Review: I bought this book after reading rave reviews about it. I was truly disappointed. The book makes one or two points and then repeats them over and over, probably in an attempt to fatten the book for publication. The author describes a few minor abuses of the English language but does nothing more. This book suffers in comparison to others such as Patricia O'Conner's "Woe is I", which present English abuses in a clever and better written style and which provide examples of incorrect usage and their corrected versions. These latter books teach you something about the English language. Eats and Shoots does not. If you are considering buying this book, ask a friend to talk you out of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Truss, you ain't got it. :(
Review: A book like this has needed to be written for a while. It's not a definitive guide to punctuation by any means, but it it aims to be a readble, fairly thorough romp through the little squiggles that make language intelligible. It's just such a shame that it had to be written by Lynn Truss, whose voice throughout is spiked with a false sense of bon homie and a very real smarminess. I heard her on the radio recently and she ain't funny in person at all, so why try in print? And another thing, she's pictured posing on the back flap about to add an apostrophe to an advertisement for the film 'Two Weeks Notice'. Why didn't she? I get the sense that all her talk of 'zero tolerance' and ambitions of literary militias are strictly posing as well.
| 
